Der ghanaische Maler Alfred Mensa und Afrika-Termine

Der junge ghanaische Künstler Alfred Mensa spachtelt das Gesicht Afrikas in Acryl auf Leinwand. Ab sofort in Deutschland exklusiv bei wwww.MyAfricanPainting.de .

Tipps by AfroPort.de

FESTIVALS – Märkte

28.08.-27.11. Weddinger Afrikawochen 2009 .. Berlin Wedding

28.08.-03.10. Afrika im Soldiner Kiez .. Berlin

04.09.-06.09. Afrikamarkt-Benefiz – Karibuni .. am Steinhuder Meer Wunstorf

09.09.-19.09. ilb – internationales literaturfestival berlin .. Berlin

10.09.-13.09. SUBSAHARA Afrika im Film IV .. Filmmuseum Potsdam

12.09.        Rendsburger Afrika Tage .. Rendsburg

12.09.        One World Festival Bremen .. Kulturwerkstatt Westend Bremen

18.09.-24.09. Began in Africa 09 .. Porgy Wien  A

18.09.-03.10. Interkulturelle Woche .. München

22.09.-26.09. AfriCult – Afrikanisches Festival .. Amerlinghaus   A

24.09.-27.09. Filmreihe “Africa goes Cologne – Cologne goes Africa” .. Köln

30.09.-11.10. perspektive – Nürnberger Filmfestival der Menschenrechte

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_veranstaltungen_festivals.php

VORSCHAU – die nächsten beiden Monate:

03.10.-04.10. Afrikanisches Fest Köln .. Sportanlage der FDS

13.10.-05.11. Salam.Orient 2009 .. Wien  A

26.10.-01.11. T.I.A. – This is Africa .. Leipzig

13.11.-29.11. Afrikanische Wochen Augsburg .. Augsburg

25.11.-29.11. Tambours Battant Festival .. Genf CH

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_veranstaltungen_festivals.php

HIGHLIGHTS DER KOMMENDEN WOCHEN

05.09.        Karibu –  Afrikafest für Familien .. Ledermuseum Offenbach

11.09.        Dancemania – the virus of freedom. Tanzfest .. Offenbach

12.09.        Afrika-Festival .. Museumsfoyer des Filmmuseums Potsdam

19.09.        Aktionstag: Gleiches Recht für Alle!? .. Ledermuseum Offenbach

19.09.        BENEFIZGALA. Jede Oma zählt .. Grassimuseum Leipzig

25.09.        Afrikanischer Kulturabend .. Nachbarschaftscafe Berlin

10.10.        Jobarteh-Kunda .. Freiheiz Halle München

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_veranstaltungen_festivals.php

AUSSTELLUNGEN:

01.04.-13.09. Die Kolonisation und die Geschichte der Kolonisierten .. Wien A

09.04.-05.09. Tutanchamun – Sein Grab und die Schätze .. München

30.04.-06.09. António Ole: Hidden Pages .. Iwalewa-Haus Bayreuth

30.04.-06.09. Susanne Wenger. Stationen eines Lebens .. Iwalewa-Haus Bayreuth

16.05.-05.09. Dominique Zinké & Leon Pollux .. Haus der Völker Schwaz A

02.07.-15.09. Momar Seck, Gopal Dagnogo, Hamed Quattara .. Zürich CH

18.08.-25.11. Adieu l’Excision! .. LoNam Verlag Berlin

29.08.-06.09. Calebasse. Malerei, Skulptur, Installation .. whiteBOX München

03.09.-31.12. Erweiterung der Afrika-Ausstellung .. Ethnologisches Museum Berlin

04.09.-10.10. Andrew Tshabangu. Johannesburg transitions .. Galerie Seippel Köln

26.09.-20.10. Real Energy World / NIGER DELTA .. Forum Stadtpark Graz A

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_kunst_ausstellungen.php

KONZERTE:

02.09./03.09. AFRICAN VOICES FOR HOPE. Benefizkonzert .. München

02.09.        Jean Paul Bourelly Trio – “The 3 Kings” .. Hamburg

02.09.        Astrid North & Jean-Paul Bourelly .. Münster

03.09.        Oumou Sangaréund Mônica Salmaso .. Berlin

05.09.        Klassikabend: Brief an Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach .. Berlin

05.09.        AFRICAN VOICES FOR HOPE. Benefizkonzert .. Nürnberg

05.09.        JP Musungay – Afrochanson .. Berlin

05.09.        African Saturday Jump .. Wien A

05.09.        Erick Manana .. Uferhallen Berlin

05.09.        African Soulful Gospelnight .. Hamburg

05.09.        Ruffin Nkoy Loola & Band .. Berlin

05.09.        Afrikanisches Konzert im Glaskasten .. Berlin

12.09.        Jobarteh-Kunda .. Runding

12.09.        Banda Tropical de Hamburgo .. Hamburg

15.09.-19.09. Men Under Cover .. München

17.09.        MoZuluArt + special guests .. Wien A

17.09.        De La Soul .. Berlin

18.09.-24.09. Began in Africa 09 .. Wien A

18.09.        ”Erzähl mir wer Du bist” .. Wiesbaden

20.09.        Deutschlandpremiere: Die vergessenen Befreier .. Berlin

22.09.        Samy Deluxe & Tsunami Band. Dis wo ich hinkomm Tour .. Stuttgart

23.09.        The Corroborations “Gumboot-Dance-Show” .. Kaiserslautern

24.09.        FUNNY VAN DANNEN. Saharasand Tour .. Köln

24.09.        Sara Tavares .. Leipzig

26.09.        FUNNY VAN DANNEN. Saharasand Tour .. Berlin

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_veranstaltungen_konzerte.php

VORTRÄGE – Filme:

27.08.-09.09. Film: 7915 KM. auf den spuren der rallye nach dakar .. Berlin

29.08.-03.09. Film: HOTEL SAHARA .. Moviemento Berlin

02.09.        Hitlers afrikanische Opfer .. München

03.09.        Hitlers afrikanische Opfer .. Berlin

06.09.        Samy Deluxe „Dis wo ich herkomm“ .. Hamburg

07.09.        Ladykino: Wüstenblume. Preview .. Malthäser Kino München

08.09.        Big Chiefs. Lesung mit Meja Mwangi .. OBern CH

09.09.        Die Boser-Gardi-Expedition nach Westafrika (1973-1975) .. Basel CH

10.09.        Senegal. Diavortrag mit Béatrice Soupez .. Heilbronn

11.09.        AFRIKA MITTE(N) IM GESPRÄCH: Koko N’Diabi Affi-Tenin .. Berlin

13.09.        Film: Den Muso – Das Mädchen .. Berlin

15.09.        Weibliche Genitalverstümmelung im Diskurs .. Berlin

15.09.        Schwarze Häftlinge im KZ Neuengamme .. Hamburg

15.09.        Ilona Maria Hilliges. Lesung aus “Ein Kind Afrikas” .. Neuruppin

15.09.        Preview. Wüstenblume – mit Waris Dirie .. Malthäser Kino München

16.09.        Afrika – Mon Amour, Zwei Brückenbauer .. Buchmesse Fankfurt

16.09.        CineLady-Vorpremiere: Wüstenblume .. Sony Center Berlin

17.09.        Als Sosu sein Dorf rettete .. Fankfurt

17.09.        NOLLYWOOD SPEZIAL: White Waters. Nigeria .. Berlin

18.09.        Endlich frei. Die Nelson Mandela Story .. Waldkraiburg

18.09.-19.09. Der schwierige Prozess der Transformation. Zimbabwe Seminar .. Bonn

18.09.        Wie die Chinesen den Afrikanern Kapitalismus beibringen .. Fankfurt

18.09.        Kein Schnitt ins Leben … Offenbach

18.09.        AFRIKA MITTE(N) IM GESPRÄCH: MFA Kera, Madagaskar .. Berlin

18.09.        Erzähl mir wer Du bist. Szenische Lesung … Wiesbaden

19.09.        Aktionstag: Gleiches Recht für Alle!? .. Offenbach

19.09.        Kente-Geschichten aus Ghana. Gespräch .. Basel CH

19.09.        125 Jahre Kongo-Konferenz .. Berlin

20.09.        Stadtsafari – Afrika in Basel. Stadtrundgang .. Basel CH

20.09.        Von Adinkra bis Tifinagh: Symbole und Schriftzeichen .. Frankfurt

20.09.        Säge- und Punzierarbeit der Tuareg .. Frankfurt

23.09.-25.09. Afrika: Wirtschaftsentwicklung und Konfliktpotentiale .. Tutzing

24.09.        Kinostart: Wüstenblume .. Berlin

24.09.        Kinostart: Wüstenblume .. München

24.09.        Kinostart: Wüstenblume .. Frankfurt

24.09.        Kinostart: Wüstenblume .. Hamburg und viele weitere Städte

24.09.-27.09. Filmreihe “Africa goes Cologne – Cologne goes Africa” .. Köln

25.09.        AFRIKA MITTE(N) IM GESPRÄCH: Stefanie-Laya Aukongo .. Berlin

27.09.        Film: Baara – Der Lastenträger .. Berlin

29.09.-01.10. Euro-African Aviation Conference .. München

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_veranstaltungen_vortraege.php

WORKSHOPS:

01.05.-31.10. Afrikanischer Steinbildhauerkurs .. Westfalenpark Dortmund

05.09.-07.09. Tanz -Workshop mit Achille Acakpo, Benin .. München

05.09.-06.09. Workshops mit Mayemouna Gaye und Live Trommelmusik .. Bremen

05.09.-06.09. Trommelwochenende mit Lamin Camara & Freunden .. Seedcamp A

11.09.-13.09. Münstereifeler Literaturgespräch .. Bad Münstereifel

12.09.-13.09. „Stomp!“ Workshop .. Brotfabrik Bonn

13.09.        Sabar am Sonntag mit Moussa Diagne .. Köln

15.09.        Afropercussion mit Benno Sterzer .. Musikschule Pöchlarn A

18.09.-19.09. Der schwierige Prozess der Transformation. Zimbabwe Seminar

18.09.-20.09. AfroPercussionPowerWeekend mit Benno Sterzer .. Eltendorf A

23.09.-25.09. Afrika: Wirtschaftsentwicklung und Konfliktpotentiale .. Tutzing

26.09.        Afrikanischer Trommelworkshop mit Sam Jarju .. Leipzig

26.09.-27.09. Mit Ghana in Verbindung. Vernetzungstreffen .. St. Andreasberg

09.10.-11.10. Trommeln in den Vogesen mit Daniela Häbig und Judith Dücker

15.10.-16.10. Bürgerschaftliches Engagement von MigrantInnen  .. Remagen

23.10.-25.10. Herbst-Workshop in Annweiler mit Nazaire Mann

31.10.-01.11. Workshops mit Mayemouna Gaye und Live Trommelmusik .. Hamburg

31.10.-01.11. 3 Workshops Afrikanischer Tanz mit Moussa Diagne .. Aachen

05.11.-08.11. Workshop mit Koffi Kôkô .. München

07.11.-08.11. Workshop Djembe und Sabar mit Moussa Diagne & Friends .. Duisburg

13.11.-14.11. grenzgängerin – mein leben zwischen den kulturen. .. Berlin

20.11.-21.11. Ritual-Seminar mit Sobonfu Somé .. Lindau

20.11.-22.11. Afrikanisches Trommeln mit Benno Sterzer .. St. Georgen A

23.11.-27.11. Gemeinsam leben in einer Welt .. Kochel

27.11.        Seminar mit Sobonfu Somé .. Freiburg

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/em_aktivitaeten_workshops.php

Reisetermine – Reise-Specials:

13.09.-25.09. Leserreise nach Namibia

15.09.-30.09. UGANDA – Wanderung zu den Berggorillas

25.09.-09.10. Leserreise nach Namibia

29.09.-03.10. Unternehmerreise nach Simbabwe

29.09.-14.10. UGANDA – Wanderung zu den Berggorillas

09.10.-11.10. Trommeln in den Vogesen ..

16.10.-31.10. 16-tägige Rundreise mit MadameDakarReisen

06.11.-21.11. 16-tägige Rundreise mit MadameDakarReisen

07.11.-23.11. KONGO BRAZZA – intakter Regenwald Zentralafrikas

07.11.-25.11. Kamerum & Zentralafrikan. Rep. – Nationalparks ..

14.11.-19.11. Unternehmerreise nach Algerien und Libyen

14.11.-28.11. Kamerun – Dzanga Sangha

21.11.-06.12. KAMERUN NIGERIA – Cross River Gorillas

01.12.-16.12. UGANDA – Wanderung zu den Berggorillas

04.12.-19.12. 16-tägige Rundreise mit MadameDakarReisen

05.12.-23.12. Kamerum & Zentralafrikan. Rep. – Nationalparks ..

07.12.-21.12. Auf den Spuren der Kalebasse. Senegalrundreise

21.12.-10.01. Tanzen und Trommeln in Senegal mit Moussa Diagne

22.12.-06.01. UGANDA – Wanderung zu den Berggorillas

26.12.-09.01. Kamerun – Dzanga Sangha

03.01.-17.01. Tanzreise mit Koffi Kôkô

31.01.-14.02. Kamerun – Dzanga Sangha

01.02.-19.02. Kamerum & Zentralafrikan. Rep. – Nationalparks ..

13.02.-06.03. Workshop-Reise nach Oberguinea zur Trommelschule Mansa Camio

13.02.-28.02. KAMERUN NIGERIA – Cross River Gorillas

25.02.-08.03. Raos Sharoi – Tanz- und Kulturreise nach Ägypten

07.03.-23.03. KONGO BRAZZA – intakter Regenwald Zentralafrikas

13.03.-31.03. Kamerum & Zentralafrikan. Rep. – Nationalparks ..

28.03.-10.04. Senegalreise mit Mayemouna Gaye

08.05.-23.05. KAMERUN NIGERIA – Cross River Gorillas

mehr unter: http://www.afroport.de/sr_reisen_termine.php

TV-Tipps:

02.09. 07:30-08:00 arte      Das Fernsehen der Ivorer

02.09. 19:00-19:45 arte      Äthiopien – Wenn der Regen ausbleibt

03.09. 21:30-22:00 sat       Nie wieder Krieg? Der Fluch des Tötens

04.09. 02:00-02:45 Phoenix   Wüstentour zu den Tuareg. In der algerischen Sahara

05.09. 12:15-12:45 NDR       Der Löwenflüsterer von der Lippe

05.09. 19:20-19:50 sat       Benin: Sklaven, Könige, Voodoopriester

06.09. 14:00-15:30 arte      Musée du Quai Branly. Das neue Ethnologiemuseum

06.09. 18:30-19:00 H3        Hilfe aus der Luft: Ärzte für Kinder in Not

07.09. 13:30-14:00 H3        Ich bin ein weißer Afrikaner. Abschied von J. Rouch

07.09. 18:05-18:55 arte      Niger – Das Treffen der Wodaabe-Nomaden

07.09. 22:55       MDR       Drum – Wahrheit um jeden Preis. Spielfilm 2004

08.09. 11:30-12:15 NDR       Der Gorilla meines Großvaters

08.09. 13:30-14:15 H3        Südafrika – Naturwunder am Kap

09.09. 09:05-09:50 arte      Äthiopien – Wenn der Regen ausbleibt

09.09. 13:30-14:15 H3        Namibia – Land der roten Stille

10.09. 06:45-07:30 sat       Hexen, Heiler, Zauberer. Mythen und Aberglaube

10.09. 13:30-14:15 H3        Westsahara – Die vergessene Wüste

11.09. 19:00-19:45 arte      Ostafrika – Im Reich der Massai

12.09. 13:30-14:00 arte      Zapping International: Das Fernsehen auf Mauritius

13.09. 08:30-09:00 Phoenix   Mama Massai. Als Missionarin am Kilimandscharo

13.09. 10:40-11:00 MDR       Sarah Wiener in Marrakesch

14.09. 19:00-19:45 arte      Asmara: Eritreas unbekannte Schöne

15.09. 19:00-19:45 arte      Dunkle Schönheit Eritrea

16.09. 00:00-06:00 Phoenix   Themennacht Maghreb

16.09. 13:00-13:30 NDR       Zwischen Kairo und Kapstadt

16.09. 19:00-19:45 arte      Timbuktus verschollenes Erbe. Vom Sande verweht

17.09. 23:15       WDR       Der lange Weg ans Licht

18.09. 20:15-21:00 HR        Schicksalsfluss der Serengeti – der Mara

[Via http://afripi.wordpress.com]

Obama. Barack Obama, DoubleAgent?

Obama’s bios are as important for what they leave out as for what they reveal. I first became suspicious of his now-infamous trip to Pakistan (which he took in the summer between Occidental and Columbia) because he refused to mention this adventure in his books.

Think of it: We are talking about a man who compiled not one but two autobiographical works before the age of 46. We are talking about an ambitious politician intent on establishing his foreign policy cred. Yet he refused to mention a dangerous trip to Pakistan which he made at a time when travel to that country was discouraged by the State Department. That country was then the focus of the CIA’s largest covert operation, the supplying of the Afghan mujahadeen. While there, this callow college kid met with one of the most powerful men in Pakistan — a meeting arranged by an unnamed personage with the American Embassy. (Spook-watchers know what that means.)

If the trip was a pleasure jaunt, why did Obama keep it a secret? And how did he pay for the journey?

Obama kept his hair-raising Pakistan adventure completely under wraps for many years. He never alluded to it in public. He wrote two autobiographies without once mentioning a dangerous trip to an exotic war zone — a trip that most guys would consider rather thrilling and colorful.

Does that reticence strike you as odd? Sure strikes me as odd.

Even odder: One month after the passport scandal, Obama — a propos de rien — let slip that he had been to Pakistan.

Passports.

As a former Indonesian citizen, young Barry probably possessed two passports. The Agency just loves people who have two. At that time, the Indonesian passport would have made travel to (and within) Pakistan much easier.

There’s another reason why Obama may have been recruited. I have argued that Obama comes from a rather spooky family. As mentioned above, Stanley Ann Dunham, our current president’s mother, also went to Pakistan — for reasons that have no discernible link to her career path. She even learned Urdu. Why?

[Via http://aconservativeedge.com]

Sarah Palin, Health Care, and the Adolescent President

The decision of modern man to live in the here and now is reflected in the neglect of aging parents, whom proper sentiment once kept in positions of honor and authority. There was a time when the elder generation was cherished because it represented the past; now it is avoided and thrust out of sight for the same reason. Richard Weaver

Sarah Palin is the left’s enemy because she adheres to first principles. Not only does Palin live-out her foundational belief and trust in God’s mercy, she has the audacity to inject her transendent belief into the public square. For the liberal, this is anathema. The Founding Father’s belief in what liberals consider “myth” is strictly verboten, and their so-called Roman Catholic representatives (Biden, Pelosi, etc.) vilify anyone with the temerity to consider public policy in light of first principles. Our adolescent president has even gone so far as to state America is no longer a Christian nation.

The left certainly has its share of God-hating supporters, who rally to the defense of Obama’s health care overhaul by marginalizing and stereotyping the opponents. In the New York times, Matt Bai writes: “The typical anti-Obama activist tends to be white, male and — perhaps most significant — advanced in age.“

Anti-Obama “activist”? Since when does opposing a policy equate to opposing a person or being an activist?

This type of irrationality and unfounded categorization is the normative behavior of adolescent mentalities; it reflects an over-emotive state brought on my hormonal changes that conflict with the newly acquired skill of abstract thinking. And, just as in adolescents, the left loses the battle to their emotions time and again. Thus, if we follow the left’s skewed logic to its conclusion, old people are one of the culprits for the lastest Rasmussen and Zogby polls showing the president’s approval rating at 46 and 42 percent respectively. Balderdash!

What the left refuses to understand is that “the Left is speaking from the dark heart of collectivism, a belief system that will collapse if it acknowledges any area in which the rights of an individual absolutely trump the needs of the State.” Therefore, regardless of its ongoing smears, stereotyping, and vilifying average Americans, liberal adolescence is not welcomed by thinking citizens, regardless of their age. And Sarah Palin drives this point home repeatedly, much to the chagrin and consternation of the left.

Analogous to American’s distate for the blatant power grab ensconced within health care reform is what Jennifer Rubin notes in her piece titled Media Stunned as ObamaCare Unravels:

Film screenwriter William Goldman once wrote of Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.” What is often true of movie-makers — due largely to the all-too human inability to predict what the public will like — is all the more accurate of mainstream media pundits. For all their years of experience and their supposed grasp of the fine points of politics, it seems most of them were caught flat-footed, just like the White House, when it came to the unraveling of ObamaCare.

Yes, one can make the argument that the left’s adolesence is wholly part of the media’s and Hollywood’s mindset and worldview, but the real issue is still the problem of emotion over reason. America’s liberals do not think, they react. And when it doesn’t go their way, then grandma and grandpa are “Nazis,” “evil,”, and “unAmerican.” So much for honoring and respecting those who eradicated fascism in World War II. In fact, if we left it up to Obama’s science “czar” and his czar’s friend Harrison Brown, America’s “anti-Obama activists” would already be Soylent Green.

Sarah Palin recognizes the irrationality of the left and she makes no effort to hide what America’s liberals and Obama are endeavoring to achieve. By rhetorically ripping-away the thin veil that masks the left’s evil intent, Palin has earned herself the wrath and contempt of those whose malevolent designs sneer at God and are filled with arrogant condescension toward average Americans. In essence, Palin clearly sees what Obama and his supporters are up to because, at the very least, she is a mother to teenagers. Who better to see the left’s emotive-based adolescent irrationality then a mother? Moreover, as a mother to adolescents, Palin knows that this age group, as it sees itself emancipated, is absolutely convinced that its parents are fearful of reality. However, it is the adolescent who doesn’t understand or grasp reality. And the adolescent’s perception that they are still treated as children instead of adults is well founded when said adolescents think, behave, and demand like children — just like Obama’s supporters and liberals in general.

So even though Obama strives to “act” presidential, it’s his flawed policies and his supporter’s antics that lend great credence to what Palin publicly states, and the body politic understands this at the conscious and sub-conscious levels. As Richard Weaver noted in his seminal work:

In the same way that our cognition passes from a report of particular details to a knowledge of universals, so our sentiments pass from a welter of feeling to an illumined concept of what one ought to feel.

Thus, those who oppose ObamaCare have matured to a level the adolescent has yet to achieve. And it is this very maturity that allows the opposition to understand the implied tasks of “death panels,” government-funded abortion, and free medical care for illegal aliens that the adolescent left vehemently denies exists in ObamaCare, even though it is clear these implied tasks are realistically deducible from the plain writing contained in the bill. And with Sarah publicly “outing” Obama as an adolescent president, is it any wonder the left is throwing a tempter tantrum?

[Via http://markepstein.wordpress.com]

Sen. Grassley: No public option in health reform - AP

Aug 31, 9:18 PM EDT

Sen. Grassley: No public option in health reform

By MIKE GLOVER – AP

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa Republican Sen. Charles Grassley said Monday he remains hopeful a limited health care reform measure can be negotiated, but that a small bipartisan group of senators working on the issue agrees a government-run public option won’t be part of the package.

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., meanwhile, said an overhaul measure will be presented this year with or without bipartisan support – though he said a compromise would be far better than any bill pushed through solely by Democrats.

The senators are among a group of three Democrats and three Republicans on the pivotal Finance Committee who are negotiating a proposal to overhaul the nation’s health care system. Both said Monday they were hopeful a bipartisan deal could be reached.

via News from The Associated Press.

[Via http://sroblog.com]

Obama: America's Moral Idiot in Chief

Lest anyone think the title is a “wingnut” ad hominem directed toward the president, let’s define a couple of terms.

Moral: of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior

Idiot: a foolish or stupid person

Based on these definitions, we see that Obama is not alone. Nor do many Americans escape the combined definitions, if we consider modern man’s contemporary love affair with the Whig theory of history (i.e., man reaches higher states of development with time) and the evolutionary theory that posits the necessity of passing from the simple to the complex. Combined, these two theories (Whig and evolution) require the consequence of a threat to the minimum value necessary to assess the political state.

In essence, man’s contemporary belief and decision to eliminate a higher “truth” than man is the proximate cause of man’s other evil decisions.

And ObamaCare is merely one in a long line of man’s evil decisions. And, yes, ObamaCare is evil and its proponents are moral idiots. As Victor Hanson notes: “One of the stranger things about this eerie first eight months of the Obama administration is how brazenly its supporters have been about the noble ends justifying the disreputable means.”

However, if Obama, his supporters, and the proponents of ObamaCare have noble ends in mind, how can their ends be disreputable? Simply stated, it is the consequence of contemporary philosophy. A belief system and worldview rejecting any biblical basis for moral decision making and the total acceptance that “man created in the divine image, the protagonist of a great drama in which his soul was at stake, was replaced by man the wealth-seeking and -consuming animal.” (Richard Weaver)

These same disreputable ends are found in the supposedly “noble” reason President Obama reversed himself concerning investigating the CIA, a congressman has a constituent removed from a Town Hall meeting, the Lockerbie bomber is set free for future oil, Senator Reid stating Senator Kennedy’s death will help the Democrats advance ObamaCare, and the public statements of a race-baiting congresswoman insisting Americans need to support the president’s health care overhaul because America elected a man “from Kenya and Kansas.”

In other words, morality and the Founding Father’s ethical framework be damned; full steam ahead in meeting the needs of America’s wealth-seeking and -consuming animals.

All of this is, unfortunately, being “sold” to Americans by cloaking the stimulus, bail outs, nationalization, and health care overhaul in what the Communists viewed as logical charity. Except the outworking is completely uncharitable, just as the former Soviet system and current “flavors” of Communism are systems of enslavement that vilify the middle class and render it obsolete. The current culture in Washington (both left and right) is amoral and unequipped to recognize the degraded state of the political system that has no means to perceive and measure the country’s descent into the moral and intellectual abyss responsible for ObamaCare. America flounders as amoral sociopaths lead the country.

Thus, when the middle class questions leadership about its moral decadence, our representatives act incredulous and resentful, lashing out at the very people they serve.

In conjunction with contempt for people who question said decadence, it is nearly impossible to reason with those who support the current leadership at the ballot box and in the public square. Obama’s supporters have fallen prey to hysterical optimism and any rational argument that is contrary to this “hope” is met with histrionics normally reserved for a lynch mob.

Therefore, despite any right or wrong argument for or against ObamaCare, a rational debate is impossible. Modern man’s egotism will not allow the humility needed for rigorous self-examination and self-criticism. Both of which are pre-requisites to debate, but both are long buried, as a result of our country’s lust for running away from first principles.

May God have mercy on all of us.

[Via http://markepstein.wordpress.com]

Fame seeking artist irked his Obama parody is being ignored

By Gloria Teasdale, Senior Arts and Trans Fat Writer

The "Oburglar" poster - not attracting much attention.

MADISON, WISCONSIN – A Wisconsin college student is irate a controversial poster he created mocking President Obama isn’t getting any notoriety.

Collin Davlin, an amateur artist and Bovine Studies major at the University of Wisconsin, created his “Oburglar” poster on Photoshop last month, shortly after a poster parodying the President as the Joker drew headlines nationwide.

“It’s bogus my poster hasn’t created any waves, because it’s really, really good,” Davlin said. “It’s easily ten times more controversial than that stupid Joker picture. I have equated the President with the most notorious villain in the entire fast food world – you’d think someone would be outraged by that.”

Davlin’s Obama poster shows the President dressed up as the Hamburglar, the rascally McDonald’s trickster infamous for stealing hamburgers while mumbling “robble, robble” in a saucy voice. On the bottom of Davlin’s poster is the word “kleptocracy,” a form of government in which the ruling class enriches itself at the public’s expense.

“I designed this poster for two reasons. First, I wanted to raise awareness of Obama’s kleptocratic agenda that’s stolen billions of dollars from the people to line the pockets of his corporate cronies,” Davlin said.

“But more importantly, I just wanted to be famous, and thought this poster would piss enough people off to get me that. Maybe even leverage it all into a book deal. Boy was I wrong.”

Davlin is also upset his other two McDonald’s parody posters – “Mayor McPalin” and “Grimace Joe Biden” – have also failed to generate scuttlebutt.

“I don’t know what else I can do,” he said. “I posted them on my Twitter page. I sent them to all my Facebook friends. I even email them to the major news networks. No response. Nada. People are fickle.”

A brief canvass of Davlin’s fellow University of Wisconsin students seems to bear that out.

“Ew that’s stupid,” said freshman Erica Long when shown the Oburglar poster. “Politics is gross.”

“Why would someone want to diss the Hamburglar, he always seemed alright to me,” said junior Brian Johnson.

[Via http://thewackydeli.wordpress.com]

Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne Only a Kennedy could get away with it

August 29, 2009, 7:00 a.m.

Airbrushing out Mary Jo Kopechne

Only a Kennedy could get away with it.

By Mark Steyn

We are enjoined not to speak ill of the dead. But, when an entire nation — or, at any rate, its “mainstream” media culture — declines to speak the truth about the dead, we are certainly entitled to speak ill of such false eulogists. In its coverage of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy’s passing, America’s TV networks are creepily reminiscent of those plays Sam Shepard used to write about some dysfunctional inbred hardscrabble Appalachian household where there’s a baby buried in the backyard but everyone agreed years ago never to mention it.

In this case, the unmentionable corpse is Mary Jo Kopechne, 1940

–1969. If you have to bring up the, ah, circumstances of that year of decease, keep it general, keep it vague. As Kennedy flack Ted Sorensen put it in Time magazine: “Both a plane crash in Massachusetts in 1964 and the ugly automobile accident on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969 almost cost him his life.”

That’s the way to do it! An “accident,” “ugly” in some unspecified way, just happened to happen — and only to him, nobody else. Ted’s the star, and there’s no room to namecheck the bit players. What befell him was . . . a thing, a place. As Joan Vennochi wrote in the Boston Globe: “Like all figures in history — and like those in the Bible, for that matter — Kennedy came with flaws. Moses had a temper. Peter betrayed Jesus. Kennedy had Chappaquiddick, a moment of tremendous moral collapse.”

Actually, Peter denied Jesus, rather than “betrayed” him, but close enough for Catholic-lite Massachusetts. And if Moses having a temper never led him to leave some gal at the bottom of the Red Sea, well, let’s face it, he doesn’t have Ted’s tremendous legislative legacy, does he? Perhaps it’s kinder simply to airbrush out of the record the name of the unfortunate complicating factor on the receiving end of that moment of “tremendous moral collapse.” When Kennedy cheerleaders do get around to mentioning her, it’s usually to add insult to fatal injury. As Teddy’s biographer Adam Clymer wrote, Edward Kennedy’s “achievements as a senator have towered over his time, changing the lives of far more Americans than remember the name Mary Jo Kopechne.”

You can’t make an omelette without breaking chicks, right? I don’t know how many lives the senator changed — he certainly changed Mary Jo’s — but you’re struck less by the precise arithmetic than by the basic equation: How many changed lives justify leaving a human being struggling for breath for up to five hours pressed up against the window in a small, shrinking air pocket in Teddy’s Oldsmobile? If the senator had managed to change the lives of even more Americans, would it have been okay to leave a couple more broads down there? Hey, why not? At the Huffington Post, Melissa Lafsky mused on what Mary Jo “would have thought about arguably being a catalyst for the most successful Senate career in history . . . Who knows — maybe she’d feel it was worth it.” What true-believing liberal lass wouldn’t be honored to be dispatched by that death panel?

We are all flawed, and most of us are weak, and in hellish moments, at a split-second’s notice, confronting the choice that will define us ever after, many of us will fail the test. Perhaps Mary Jo could have been saved; perhaps she would have died anyway. What is true is that Edward Kennedy made her death a certainty. When a man (if you’ll forgive the expression) confronts the truth of what he has done, what does honor require? Six years before Chappaquiddick, in the wake of Britain’s comparatively very minor “Profumo scandal,” the eponymous John Profumo, Her Majesty’s Secretary of State for War, resigned from the House of Commons and the Queen’s Privy Council, and disappeared amid the tenements of the East End to do good works washing dishes and helping with children’s playgroups, in anonymity, for the last 40 years of his life. With the exception of one newspaper article to mark the centenary of his charitable mission, he never uttered another word in public again.

Ted Kennedy went a different route. He got kitted out with a neck brace and went on TV and announced the invention of the “Kennedy curse,” a concept that yoked him to his murdered brothers as a fellow victim — and not, as Mary Jo perhaps realized in those final hours, the perpetrator. He dared us to call his bluff, and, when we didn’t, he made all of us complicit in what he’d done. We are all prey to human frailty, but few of us get to inflict ours on an entire nation.

His defenders would argue that he redeemed himself with his “progressive” agenda, up to and including health-care “reform.” It was an odd kind of “redemption”: In a cooing paean to the senator on a cringe-makingly obsequious edition of NPR’s Diane Rehm Show, Edward Klein of Newsweek fondly recalled that one of Ted’s “favorite topics of humor was, indeed, Chappaquiddick itself. He would ask people, ‘Have you heard any new jokes about Chappaquiddick?’”

Terrific! Who was that lady I saw you with last night?

Beats me!

Why did the Last Lion cross the road?

To sleep it off!

What do you call 200 Kennedy sycophants at the bottom of a Chappaquiddick pond? A great start, but bad news for NPR guest-bookers! “He was a guy’s guy,” chortled Edward Klein. Which is one way of putting it.

When a man is capable of what Ted Kennedy did that night in 1969 and in the weeks afterwards, what else is he capable of? An NPR listener said the senator’s passing marked “the end of civility in the U.S. Congress.” Yes, indeed. Who among us does not mourn the lost “civility” of the 1987 Supreme Court hearings? Considering the nomination of Judge Bork, Ted Kennedy rose on the Senate floor and announced that “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit down at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution . . . ”

Whoa! “Liberals” (in the debased contemporary American sense of the term) would have reason to find Borkian jurisprudence uncongenial, but to suggest the judge and former solicitor-general favored re-segregation of lunch counters is a slander not merely vile but so preposterous that, like his explanation for Chappaquiddick, only a Kennedy could get away with it. If you had to identify a single speech that marked “the end of civility” in American politics, that’s a shoo-in.

If a towering giant cares so much about humanity in general, why get hung up on his carelessness with humans in particular? For Kennedy’s comrades, the cost was worth it. For the rest of us, it was a high price to pay. And, for Ted himself, who knows? He buried three brothers, and as many nephews, and as the years took their toll, it looked sometimes as if the only Kennedy son to grow old had had to grow old for all of them. Did he truly believe, as surely as Melissa Lafsky and Co., that his indispensability to the republic trumped all else? That Camelot — that “fleeting wisp of glory,” that “one brief shining moment” — must run forever, even if “How to Handle a Woman” gets dropped from the score. The senator’s actions in the hours and days after emerging from that pond tell us something ugly about Kennedy the man. That he got away with it tells us something ugly about American public life.

 

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2009 Mark Steyn National Review Online – http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjZlNjA1MTRmYWViNjMwMDUyNjc1ZTg0NDQwZjk2ODc=

[Via http://bsimmons.wordpress.com]